The region stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. I have met in Kuala Lumpur many students from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. At one time, many of the students moonlight as workers in IT shops and as waiters or waitresses in pubs and bars.
The countries all have the Persian suffix “-stan”, meaning “land of”. The closest I’ve been was going to Kazakhstan embassy in Jalan U Thant to apply for a visa to Kazakhstan. The Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome was to be the launch site of the rocket carrying the Malaysian astronaut to the space station. I asked the late Science Minister in a briefing as to why the selected hotels were so expensive and he said it was best for the the media and accompanying entourage to stay in top hotels for maximum security.
The great thing I remember about the Kazakhstan embassy officer was he asked me what telco I was using then (Maxis) and he told me there is service since there is a roaming agreement. I mean how many embassy officers even know or care about those things.
Fast forward to ten years later and I have a Instagram friend (@gsmile_elf) or Gulnoza Nazarova from the It is just south of Kazakhstan. The elfish, impish and beautiful Gulnoza is now studying Chinese at Lanzhou University in north west China. Coincidentally, Lanzhou is the origin of beef lamian or pulled noodles or mee tarik, I wrote about recently.
I asked Gulnoza to suggest a Uzbekistan hotel and she spoke glowingly of the Hyatt Regency Tashkent. It is a luxury hotel in the capital city and it is not cheap either.
Book the Hyatt Regency Tashkent
She sent me a bunch of pics of the hotel which I cannot use since I don’t know the source. It is shown here in a pic by Booking dot com and a pic of Gulnoza celebrating her birthday in March. I have added links to over 70 hotels in Tashkent below.
Book the Hyatt Regency Tashkent
Link to over 70 hotels in Tashkent